The Bulgarians were forced to work on a farm on the chestnut harvest. Another link to Christmas. I hope their plight at being rescued from sleeping in a 10 square-meter room in “miserable conditions” will brighten their festivities.

I hope the stores in question who released their ‘big’ adverts are not stocking the chestnuts being harvested by these poor people.

Modern-day slavery is hidden, under-reported and organised. Annual profits made from exploiting people in this way are estimated at around £22 billion.

The Salvation Army, which supports human trafficking victims, has seen a 62 percent rise in people seeking their support in the last year in The UK. This at a time when our law enforcement is shrinking it’s resources in dealing with this serious organised crime.

50 more shopping days to Christmas. Will you be thinking about Slavery when you purchase your ‘Fair Trade’ gifts?

There are many forms of West African spiritual beliefs or religions. Juju is the term given to the religion of the people of Yoruba.

If you were to look at the makeup of the world’s religions in percentage terms you would see that Christianity makes up the greater number with a total of 33% followed by Islam at 21%.

6% of the world’s population practice or believe in traditional African faiths. This is equal to the numbers who practice Buddhism and Chinese traditional religions.

But where JU JU is considered ‘mumbo jumbo’ and hard to believe the same isn’t considered for these beliefs.

JUJU or Witchcraft is considered evil or black magic but the truth is the human traffickers of Edo and Delta States of Nigeria have hijacked the cultural beliefs in Juju to blackmail their victims.

To satisfy the greed for money for those involved, including traditional priests, paid to carry out the ceremonies.

Tthe strong belief in the spirits that makes this a powerful weapon for modern day slave traders.

Once a potential victim has been put through and sworn an oath of obedience they are captured, snarled in the trap without the need for physical restraints.

The bondage is in the beliefs, there is no requirement to lock up victims and have them watched. You have the spirits to do that for you.

My argument at the dinner table, with the other invited guests, was that these followings are not so different to ours.

We go to the village elders, the learned people, when we are ill or need guidance, our Doctors, physician and theologians. Isn’t this what the witchdoctor is? A highly valued member of the community who people turn to for a blessing or to assist in an problem.

As Mr Desmond states in his blog; and the Witchdoctor who was paraded before the press at Special Investigations Unit (SIU) headquarters in Kireka last week said …….. he was paid to perform the rituals.

“They paid me between sh120,000 and sh250, 000 (£28 – £58…or $45 – $93) to do the rituals on each girl. I just did my work and I was not aware of what happened,” he said.

The women were taken to Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Oman, China and United Arab Emirates.

This isn’t a surprise looking at The Human Trafficking records of these countries but it wouldn’t be beyond belief that they may have arrived in the UK or USA!

Speaking to my old colleagues in London’s Metropolitan Police, they tell me that the child protection units are expanding every day. Those in charge are finding it tough to recruit detectives willing and competent to investigate this type of crime.

If Child exploitation is ‘The Norm’ in Manchester you can be assured London will not be very different.

The Clubs and Vice Unit which took on trafficking reports when The Human Trafficking Team was closed in 2010, has now been disbanded. The responsibility for investigation of Human Trafficking has been handed to The Kidnap Unit at Scotland Yard.

In some ways this may be a good thing. The Kidnap Unit is a well established elite team that do a fantastic job in dealing with the many kidnaps London deals with. I worked with them in 2003-2006 and the public would be amazed how many kidnaps happen and the clear up rate that is achieved by this team.

But the Kidnap team is a very busy unit dealing with these complex investigations already. Will they be able to raise the prosecution level to that of the old Human Trafficking Team or will they achieve the relatively poor results that Kevin Hylands Team achieved from 2010 to present day?

There is no doubt in my mind that Human Trafficking continues at the same high rate as when I investigated it from 2006 – 2010.

One of the places I have shared my knowledge with is the community in Tennessee in The USA.

The awareness there continues to be raised and if you watch this link, passed to me by my old chums at Finding Justice, you will see that this relatively quiet, peaceful community is seeing trafficking increase. Watch the video from End Slavery Tennessee (who I don’t believe I have met?) which relates true stories of children who have been trafficked in their area.

With London being it’s usual hive of activity I doubt Human Traffickers have given up and gone home. Once again they will be rubbing their hands that no one is looking at them.

Those that are trying to stem the flow of child exploitation and other serious crime in London are being overwhelmed with caseloads.

It is a good thing that ECPAT www.ecpat.org.uk are still around and last night celebrated 20yrs of working for Children. ECPAT UK has been instrumental in raising awareness in government of the plight of children trafficked into the UK for both sexual exploitation and for exploitative labour.

There are still many gaps in policy and practice that need urgent attention.

I have worked with many good people in my time. I am fortunate enough to see some of them speaking in this great video.

The film is called ‘Modern Slavery is closer than you think: Understanding Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking’ and it gives an important profile to a Modern Slavery Helpline that is being run by the NSPCC in the UK, to identify the victims of such crimes.

Please feel free to distribute this film to your family, friends and contacts – the more people who understand what modern slavery looks like in the UK, the more we can help find and protect the victims of these terrible crimes, globally.

In 2010 a young lady called ‘M’ interviewed myself and another officer in The Metropolitan Police about Organised Immigration Crime. One name you will recognise the other – not.

These are her notes. I hope this of interest?

Interview with Detective Sergeant Roddy Llewellyn May 4th 2010

Ds Llewellyn -What is your dissertation on?

M- My project working title is ‘how far is the many faces of organised crime’

Ds Llewellyn – laughs

M- the reason why I ask is , taking London for instance if we look at Hackney organised crime to them on their door step maybe gang crime, but in Plaistow it may not be, it maybe…

Ds Llewellyn – yes there it’s more likely to be trafficking or eastern European crimes

M- … there you go

Ds Llewellyn -Obviously I’ve got 2 hats on now, which is the human trafficking team- which I’ve just closed down- which I was working in for three years and a lot of the questions your asking now are the questions I first asked when I started the team, when they put me here i didn’t know much about human trafficking in particular but I had experience in working in over areas ,I’ve worked on Columbians, l have done a lot of work in West Africa, in fact I started the west African fraud squad. African Trafficking which I am not really involved in completely different from Eastern European trafficking. My other ‘hat’ is being a Serious Organised Crime Detective working at New Scotland Yard.

M-if you were to define organised crime what would you definition of organised crime be?

Ds Llewellyn -Well again it depends it what area your looking at, people tend to think it’s Italian Mafioso. That isn’t necessarily the case, sometimes organised crime is a lot lower organised than people would believe, but a lot of it is people trying to make money fast and they’ll use the network and community their involved in to progress their criminal activity and that’s more or less organised crime as their using the assets that are available to them . A lot of human trafficking is small gangs that have an Idea to make money quickly, they are exploiting venerable people so that they’ll bring them to the UK and sell them on or sell them repeatedly for sexual purposes or domestic servitude, we deal with sexual exploitation false labour domestic servitude, false labour and organ harvesting. Fortunately in this country we’ve never been involved in an organ harvesting case but we have been in America, they were murdering people and selling their body fat to the Eastern European cosmetic surgery market. When you think out about it they are disorganised as they make this decision to commit this crime, they want to commit this crime i.e for a reason to take the body fat, and they know they can sell it abroad or sell it somewhere, so you’ve got the network first of picking a victim that some is not going to notice is missing and then obviously killing them, and then harvesting their organs and then selling their organs where they can get the best amount of money for them. That’s just an example of not necessarily a hierarchy and not necessarily people walking around with cotton wool in their mouths, but it is a network that they know they can achieve their ultimate goals. That’s just one example, that’s an extreme example, but that’s just to highlight to you that the people who were doing it were fairly low life, they were making small amounts of money in comparison to what people think organised crime is . I was asked by some people about the film taken, where a couple of American girls get snatched from an apartment in France by eastern Europeans and sold on in this fantasy market to these high end Arabs and people ask me is that real?, well in my experience I’ve never come across anything like that. But what I have come cross is that most of the organised criminal networks that we have come in contact with and we have solved 28 in the last 3yrs and there is only 10 of us on the team. They have been in the “may” in the first instance where they’ve had an Idea. For instance we recently convicted a gang who came from Romania and their leader was a guy called Constantean Alin , selling girls for prostitution in Romania. Basically he was a bully boy, he was a big guy and people were frightened of him and he used he’s attributes for criminality and decided he was going to bring some girls over here, he trick our victim into leaving her boyfriend at the airport cause they were going to travel together and thought they were coming with him. When she arrived in the UK she was made to have sex with men against her will. The story went on were the boy friend came over and he managed to trick them into believing that he was bringing other girls over. They came to the airport to meet him and gave lots of freights saying that “if he didn’t have the girls they would kill her” and that’s how we arrested them at the airport. But it is that low level of criminality, there isn’t anyone necessarily above him. One of the other criminal networks we’ve just dismantled is a Hungarian girl and two guys she had as sort of her minders and one was her boyfriend. they were advertising to bring girls that were from hungry, but there was a network above them that is still in place and are still being investigated and have about 30 brothels that there are bringing Hungarian girls into. But again a lot of that is word of mouth, the guy that’s organising that, is being promoted as it were just because the operation got bigger as he’d got more successful he’s decided to bring more girls in. So he has expanded he’s operation and brought more people in that he could trust.

M- so these 30 brothels they have in London, are brothels not illegal so how did they get so many?

Ds Llewellyn -I can tell you now that 30 brothels is not a lot, I can show you a website now, that if you type in your post code, within 5miles there will be at least 50brothels, if i had my stand alone computer with me today, i’d do it for you but I haven’t today. Brothels are Illegal in the UK. At the moment and again this is with work that we’ve been doing there is a quadrant of London in north east London, from the Thames, sort of up to Chigwell , that sort of quadrant which is particularly prevalent with eastern Europeans at the moment, and that’s where the Olympics is being built , so you have lots of eastern European men who are coming over here to work there and of course most of them are men and when you get a high influx of men you’ll also get a high influx of sex crimes as it were. I work with a guy called Jim (pointing to Jim on entering the office), Jim used is also working on the solution to the question you asked of why there are so many brothels, when prostitution is illegal. It is very difficult to police, it is very difficult to prove that they are indeed a Brothel, and to prove that premises is a brothel they must be offered sexual services. So everybody knows it’s a brothel, but you have to prove that sexual services are being offered, not just by one person, but it must be by more than one person. The tactics we are using to tackle organised crime have never be used before, by the very nature of human trafficking the victim we are dealing with must be recruited from another country. They must be transported from that country to this country, via whatever route, which that has to be investigated . the recruitment has’t to be investigated so also will the transportation be investigated then the exploitation in this country need to be investigated. To complete our investigations more than one element will be international, for instance the recruitment and the transportation and the airlines can usually help with transportation information, and some of them could possibly stopped at international borders before they get here. So again we need to gather that evidence. And people thing gathering evidence is easy. We operate differently than a lot of European countries. The policing powers that w have over here as an investigator, they don’t have in Romania . for instance, if I want something in Romania the police officers in Romania will have to go to the prosecutors and the prosecutors will then have to sanction it, so they have investigators who are prosecutors .so the police don’t make a decision to arrest somebody ,the police don’t make a decision to prosecute somebody and the police don’t give evidence at court over there, the prosecutors do it all. So when ever we go abroad you have to adapt your policing style to meet the policing style over there, to get the evidence you require over here and make sure its presented in a way that we can use in this country. Elements of that has it’s on problems and each country that you deal with has its own problems. For example I’m waiting for the French to give me evidence that I have asked for 3 or 4 months ago. But again it helps with our Romanian stuff because we’ve got a joint, investigation team which we’re working with and I’m part of that so I have good contacts. I also have good contacts in Hungary, which I can ask for anything. They have an inquisitorial system which is different to ours where there police have to ask the prosecutor they can’t investigate you for example they would have to ask the prosecutor, if they think there is a good enough reason to investigate you. Where as I can look at you and say right I’m going to investigate you. So if we feel your dodgy we look for evidence that may point to that, and then we will then target you.

M- I heard basically that there are whole villages built for organised crime?

Ds Llewellyn -Yes if you’re talking about operation GOLF, we’ve just been over to a place called Tandurei . operation GOLF is the name of the operation, it is an operation that is targeting a gang of organised criminals who are bringing children from various parts of one town to exploit them not for sex. If i can just rewind you back a little bit, there are over 1000 children that have gone missing from this one town called Tandurei in Romania, its a romaine orientated town, there are various different sorts of people that occupy each town. The Romanian police recognised they had over 1000 children missing and the Romanian police sent to all the European countries their names, and we found 260 children that have come to our notice that have been involved in crime, and most of it is petty crime so it will be shop lifting begging , pick pocketing and then also that their names have come to notice for benefit claims, and what’s happened is that the families have sold or even had their children taken away from them with the promise to give them money, as in take them…yes as in you owe us money so we’re gonna take little Johnny and you’re going to pay of our debt. And often the debt is created to suit them, whether it be a care or something, and their like right, you owe us 1000euros for us lending you our car. But you would have thought hang on a minute you as an educated person wouldn’t allow that, but for one their very poor, the children don’t go to school they are a burden on the family, and when they get to a certain age they have a dowry system for marrying off. And if you can afford that you’ve got to pay it and at 14 the children are put into an arrange marriage. So if you have a daughter who is 14 and you have younger ones who are 6, 7,8,and 10, you’ll have to give one of the younger ones to pay off your debt.

M-Does that explain, because I was told that some of the babies the gypsy girls carry, some of them aren’t theirs. So does that explain where those babies might actually come from?

Ds Llewellyn – Yes, you’re talking about the begging aren’t you. I mean if you go to Rome , the begging is absolutely rife in Rome, each door of the churches, cause obviously in Rome people go and visit the churches and pilgrims and there are 100 of churches and they stand outside begging with kids some of the kids will have injuries that would be inflicted on them to cry or make them deformed in some way, not every single one of them is abused in that way , but that’s just some of the extreme cases . But again that’s a level or organised crime. They are prosecuting them in their country, we’re not prosecuting them here, its part of an ongoing investigation and we are willing to give them whatever they need , but we’re obviously looking to trace these children that are over here. There are various problems in that because their still not going to school over here, they are in the Roma community being moved around a lot, so it makes it difficult. They will come to notice for things like petty crime. A police officer will then arrest a child for shop lifting or pick pocketing which is a very minor offense. You don’t necessarily think of organised crime when you look at that child and you don’t necessarily consider that child as a traffic victim, you just see that he’s committed a crime and that he’s a horrible little toad, their smelly and their there, in the community. A lot of serious organised crime is feed by this street crime.

M-what.. do they keep the money for themselves?

DS Llewellyn-No everything is handed over to their keepers. But when these kids are arrested by the police, the often just say their only 8, their only 10, which is under the age of criminal responsibility, so you can’t prosecute them, so then we ask where is your parents.

M-When you find them with the drugs or the fire arms, what you do from there, because I don’t understand how some of them get away with it.?

DS Llewellyn- Well , some of them get the best defence lawyers, and basically what they’ll do they’ll get off on a technicality, and this is what I’m saying about the paper work, that is why that paper work is so huge, we have to cover every eventuality.(he pointed to about 6 massive containers ). We have to cross all our ‘I’s and dot all of our T’s. If any one of these pieces of information has just a tiny error that is spotted by the defence they could use that as against us and whole cases have been lost by use due to a technicality. Just to get a case to court I have to convince the crown prosecution service that there is an 80% chance that this person can be prosecuted, so just to get it to court there must be a very high level of solvability as it were. After that it the jury, and the jury must decide in every case, that beyond all reasonable doubt, so a very high 99.9% level, that someone is guilty of an offense. so to prosecute someone in a criminal court, it must be beyond all reasonable doubt that someone is guilty, and to prosecute someone in a civil court the level of proof is 51:49, so the level of proof in a civil court is totally different to the level of proof in a criminal court. Going back to the case of brothels, I have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that 99.9% that they are. If they turn around and say their massage parlour, and there is a rouged girl saying all she gives is massages, then it’s nothing to do with us. As a police officer I wouldn’t have it any other way, there must be that high level of proof, because you know that when you convict someone that their guilty, cause you had to get it past the CPS. Then you’ll have to get it past the jury and the judge, cause judge, because if they think there is any doubt they’ll just quash the case. So there is a very high level of threshold just to convict somebody.

M- Some of these youth on the street that are found with guns, where do these gun originate from, are they army guns?

DS Llewellyn – Well one of my roles, I used to be on the shooting them, which dealt with a lot of black on black crime, which is no longer called the shootings team, but operation Trident. So if there was a shooting we would go and investigate it. A lot of guns were either converted, so hand pistols, they started of their lives not as a gun, but as a replica gun, so they’ve been drilled, and there not very effective, because often when people fire them, they just end up falling out the other end. But the fact they are armed, shows their willingness. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, somebody hast to pull the trigger on a gun. A lot of guns have come in from the eastern European market, a lot of guns, went into Northern Ireland, which they’ve come across. But again, it’s a saleable commodity, and if it is a saleable commodity, people will buy it. And again the weapons industry is one of the biggest industry’s in the world. If you have conflicts around the world there are going to be fire arms laying around, by the very nature of people fighting, there will be guns laying around which people will pick them up and sale them again, cause they can be used again. That was a very broad question, but a lot of guns we have been finding are guns that have been converted. And there was a big case recently were a guy from oxford was convicted of converting guns. You can buy a replica, there are no restrictions on replica’s, but then you have to have the knowledge to convert it.

m-What is the law on gun licensing? DS Llewellyn Our laws are very strict.The only firearm you’re allowed is a shotgun, That is the only gun you are allowed in your house. You can be part of a shooting club, and handguns can be left at the shootings club. It is a minimum 5yrs imprisonment for possessing a handgun.

m- tell me about a big case

DS Llewellyn – Ali Arslan 4th November 2008, it took us a year to do the proceedings to take their money off them. he was convicted last year, we took 1.3million pounds off him. (pointing to pictures on the wall) this guy here Edward Facuna and…Hassan, he actually was friends with the girls family, and promised to bring her over to the UK, to get her a job at 16 so these 2 drove her across the border. They were stopped in Calais, France with a load of cigarettes, so we were able go over there and get that evidence. They sold her to another guy were he and a couple of Russian guys rapped her she was then sold again and him and a couple of other guys raped her in a house. When she had finished paying of her debt, she was then kidnapped again. but I think Ali possibly set her up, but everyone said that he was a really nice guy. Girls in the trial said he allowed them to pay off their debt and some stayed on to earn money for themselves. This on here (pointing at another case) are a family, which the other son is still outstanding he escaped and went back to Hungary , this one took place in hungry, the son picks up girls meets them in night clubs in hungry, the boy would drive them across and then the mum and dad would make them work the streets outside the house, sometimes they’ll allow them to work in the house and prostitute them, literally the whole gang, that was the whole gang, the family, they’d recruit young girls send them over here use them for a little while and send them back.

M- What’s that case called?

DS Llewellyn – R.v. kalocsai, but the two girls we bought them over to give evidence, we wanted to re-examine one of the girls, so we had to go over to Hungary to do a live video link. Because she couldn’t travel back cause she had to do something, I forget what it was , but they needed her straight away. This guy here(pointing to the wall) this is one of our first cases, a Bulgarian case. He brought he’s young girlfriend over here, she persuaded her friend to come over and the pair of them used her to get money, so they sold her as a sex slave to get money. And we arrested him first and we then tracked her down. He was married and he just decided to come with he’s girlfriend over here to earn money and live in England. This one here is an Asian lady, we think her husband sold her to a guy in England, who is a travel agent, this guy brought her over, obviously this guys a travel agent so he can easily get documentation saying she was coming over to be a student, brought her over here and placed her with this 72yr old guy as he’s sex slave, she escaped went to the police and it transpired

m- Hold on wait a minute, he sold her to a 72yr old guy, as in he’s sex slave? “confused.com…lol”

DS Llewellyn -yes, a 72year old sex slave. Both of them got arrested, the 72yrold man died in custody, the other guy he got 7yrs and the husband we could never prove that he sold her, but he moved to America

M-not with the wife I take it?

Ds Llewellyn -Lol, no not with the wife, this guy here bertrue malacintosh , he’s been to jail for 16yrs, he was had 2 girls that he had brought over from Hungary and he was driving across Europe selling them across lorry truck stops were he’d put petrol in he’s car. He took them to Holland and Austria where they worked as prostitutes, and brought them over here to work as prostitutes, and when they’d decided that they had enough, he beat them up in the streets, and that’s how we found them. But the network with him is that he knew all the Brothel bosses all over Europe, and he was just bringing these girls and working them all over and earning money literally hand to mouth, but he’d had convictions in Hungary for armed robbery for all sorts of nasty things.

M-So the way in which you found out this guy was through the fact that he found these girls beaten up?.

Ds Llewellyn -Yes, there are a couple of cases like them , I mean we have a cupboard over there where we have 300 cases in it that we’ve given advice and guidance on, were we couldn’t deal with ourselves, we just couldn’t take all of these cases on. So if somebody rings us now, saying we have a case and we don’t they don’t know how to deal with it, we would give them advice, for instance there is a case right now that is being dealt with by the rape specialists and literally every week their asking me for advice, and its quit a big trafficking case and if we had the capacity we would have taken it, but its another Romanian trafficking case and we’ve got two that we’re working on at the moment, were the girls have come over here to work as waitresses or in a club, then they’ve come over here and found the jobs not available, but yet they’ve now got a debt, they have to pay the debt off , they haven’t go their ID cards, they haven’t got money, they don’t know anybody else, their debt is increasing all the time, because their staying with the traffickers , their totally reliant on the traffickers, they don’t know exactly where they are. So a lot of our cases are reactive, that one particular case, which I was telling you about now, the victims family had rang and had reported them missing, and they had some contact with them, by text and that was it. They were being very guarded as they were in front of the guys and they had rapped them a couple of times to control them. We managed to get a Romanian police officer to persuade them, to say that they had in fact been trafficked and rapped and to meet us. In fact they had been rapped the night before, and before that they had said no they wouldn’t meet us, but then they had enough, and meet us the next day, in which we were able to rescue them. But again they meet the guys in the club almost like boyfriend and girlfriend, even though the guy was 27 and they were 17. And again it’s that streets paved with gold in London, come with us we’ll get you there, we’ll look after you. Couple of days in London, they partied for a couple of days, and then after that couple of days they started the reality, that they had to start earning some money for the journey across. And the actual outlay of the baddies were very little, and what at happened is that the baddies had their ID cards and their passports and they’d use them as collateral for the journey, so the actual bus company were holding their passports for the journey, but the girls didn’t know this. So the guys are waiting for the girls to pay off the money, so the guys were waiting for the girls to make the money so they could pay their debts of using the girls. So the girls were in a house full of Romanian construction guys, they were basically selling the girls to the guys in the house, 20 guys in one house 20-30quid a go.

M- so in order to tackle organised crime, what would you as a police officer, who has had almost 30yrs experience, say you would like to see happen?

DS Llewellyn -I’ve been in specialist crime for about 17 of my 29yrs , so obviously a lot of it is dealing with serious organised crime, what would i like to see? Possibly to have more help from the internationals units in relation to what I’ve said before! I’ve been waiting on the French Authorities for about 2 months, and the case is in May, so I’ve been waiting since March. If we are given more access to the stuff we need we would be able to solve cases faster, and solve more, sort of like what happens within the international assistance unit.

Well in relation to what I said before, if somebody wants to make fast money their gonna use what ever’s there. So if there bad, their gonna look around and their gonna use their badness to make money. I tell you what, if some of these criminals put the effort into doing a decent days work that they put into doing some of these crimes, they’ll probably earn twice as much money. But there blinkered, they only think of there and then. They’ve already made the decision to go to crime, its easy to blame other people, its easy to blame the police, but at the end of the day it’s a personal decision. If i want to walk out of here and rob a bank, I have to decide that for myself. Nobody decides that for me, nobody tells me to rob a bank, you can be vulnerable , and you can be encouraged to do it, but at the end of the day, I’m the one that walks in and decides, i’m going to rob that bank, nobody else is going to be doing that other than me. So it’s my decision, its easy to blame other people, we are in a big blame culture. Let’s take for instance burglary; one of the things we are most frightened about is getting our house burgled, now someone knows who the burglar is, some body see’s them walking down the street, somebody see’s them walking out with your TV, somebody buys that TV, in the pub. They’ve got to sell it to make money. And already you have 4 somebodies that can help. But they turn a blind eye to it. The same with drugs, somebody knows, some body has transported it, not always necessarily the people that are using it, somebody see’s someone selling stuff, so we know it’s going on. Somebody is a family member of the person that’s taking drugs they know when their gonna buy their drugs. So it’s all about people taking responsibility. Your never gonna stop drugs, your never gonna stop it, there’s always somebody that wants to experiment, or somebody that thinks it’s clever, and then it becomes an addiction. I don’t take drugs and I don’t smoke, but I like to drink…do I drink to excess? Well occasionally yeah. Why? …i have no idea, because I like it! and that’s the same sort of thing isn’t it? It’s difficult…probably if you sat down and calculated the money ive spent in my career on beer drinking, it would probably make your hair curl, if it wasn’t curly already( all laughs).

M- Is there any particular race, nationality or creed that you would say participate in this area of organised crime ?

PF-This area of crime is predominantly perpetuated by West Africans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshi, Indians and Eastern European countries that are not in the European Union.

M- Why do you believe this happens, what drives them to it?

PF-Most of the people in the United Kingdom who are illegally here are economic migrants.

M-On average how much is the economy losing a year because of this?

PF-There are no current accurate figures because the exact number of illegal subjects is unknown at this time. In my opinion I would say that it is possibly costing the government ten’s of millions annually.

M- What tactics are used to dismantle these criminal units?

PF- With information received from different sources, these individuals are targeted and evidence of their criminal activity is gathered for a successful prosecution.

M- What do you feel the biggest problem is that we are facing with this crime?

PF-Resources to tackle the crime. The government is constantly making cuts.

M-What can be done by the authorities in order to cut down on it?

PF-“Fast track” the removal of illegal subjects in the UK back to their home land and build more detention centres to house those subjects who are due to be removed. A good proportion of illegal subjects who are supposed to sign on at a immigration centre whilst there removal is arranged abscond and sometimes never found for many years until they have reached the threshold point of 14yrs where they then become eligible to remain in the UK

M-What would you like to see done in the future to clean it up?

PF-As mentioned above, more resources put into the Police and immigration service departments, bigger and more detention centres and the government fast tracking illegal subjects out of the UK

M-Do you feel there is anything else you would like to add that will give me a clearer picture about organised crime in your department, stories you would like to tell, cases and case names that have passed that I can talk about and make reference to in my assignment? News paper cuttings etc…

PF-The fact that there are so many illegal subjects in the UK, gives the organised crime groups the opportunity to produce false documentation for those seeking employment where proof of identification and right to work in the UK is required. Not all employers check the authenticity of the document (passport) hence a large number of illegal workers.

The executive and his wife travelled to Brazil about once a month and would return each time with several women who they passed off as family members, and who were thus entitled to travel on tickets costing only €150 each.

The operation was brought to a halt after one of the women, who had come to France in 2010 to study but was allegedly forced into prostitution by the executive’s wife Claudia, eventually escaped her pimps in 2013 and alerted the police.

A long time ago Delta Airlines were looking at educating their staff on Human Trafficking, looking to raise their awareness.

I’m sure many others have looked at this issue but of course cost is always an issue when big companies are looking to maximise their profits.

There is a web site that raises awareness in airline staff. I spotted it on one of my readers pages. (Thank you Phil Cenedella). It reminded me of my attempts to get airlines involved in Human Trafficing.

“Airports and supporting travel hotels are major hubs of entry and exit for perpetrators and victims alike. Training is needed for airport and travel industry personnel including airport employees, hotel employees, tourism companies, ground transportation and law enforcement.”

Maybe we should be contacting our airline of choice to establish exactly what they are doing with their staff.

Cases have been documented in which traffickers have misrepresented themselves as sports coaches, employers, and family members of trafficked victims. Airport personnel at ticket counters, gates and other areas of airport operations are in a unique position to identify potential victims and report potential incidents to law enforcement agencies, in order to rescue victims and bring traffickers to justice.

I wanted Airports in the UK to have posters placed in Immigration and places of promanace in their buildings.

It was met with a frosty reception by airport owners.

Space is advertising revenue! Once again it is left to the persons who pay these people wages to tell them what we want!

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves,” President Abraham Lincoln ‘The Great Emancipator’ proclaimed;

Surely the fact that there are more slaves now than ever before in the history of humanity would shock him.

Tragic and ironically we should be celebrating the 150 year of the emancipation but we cannot as slavery still exists.

Because human rights activists are drawing attention to this ‘atrocity’ there is no doubt trafficking exists.

That potential victims do not recognize traffickers or do not understand what they are involved in until it is too late, that worlds’ police force cannot identify it as is happening right before their eyes, and all world citizens including countries’ leaders deny the problem exists in their homeland and shifts the responsibility elsewhere.

While there are laws against human trafficking in about 80% of nations, it is estimated that 27 million people will be victims of slavery this year and that is about 3 out of every thousand people globally.

Slavery dates back to 3000 BC and enters society when civilizations begin to form. Every ancient civilization had slaves and it is currently a global problem. In a September 2012 statement President Obama states, “Now, I do not use that word, ‘slavery’ lightly. It evokes obviously one of the most painful chapters in our nation’s history. But around the world, there’s no denying the awful reality.” He goes on to describe different types of slavery as:

A desperate man needs work and is forced to work for little pay and is beaten when he tries to escape.

A woman is locked in a sweatshop or as a domestic servant that is alone, abused and incapable of leaving.

When a little boy is kidnapped and turned into a child soldier or be killed.

When a little girl is sold by her impoverished family, runs away from home by promises of a better life is then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists.

“It is barbaric, and it is evil and has no place in a civilized world” (Kiener, 2012) A more concise definition of slavery is complete ownership and control by a master who controls the victim through violence, intimidation and exploitation without pay.

In a statement on July 17, 2012 US Senator John Kerry asserts that the United States role as “a source” to be “egregious.” The above global map provided by the United States Trafficking in Persons Report and referenced by Kerry in his statement shows just how prevalent the problem actually is and identifies the United States as a source, transit, and destination country. “In the end, none of us an escape our moral obligation to be a leader in the fight against this modern-day slavery,” said Sen. Kerry. “History teaches us that we are safest and stronger when the world hears from America and when America takes the lead and we share the destiny of all people on the planet. That has always inspired people, and it always will—for the triumph of injustice is man-made, and so, too, can injustice be undone at the hands of good men and women who take action.” (Kerry, 2012) Twelve years ago the United States passed The Trafficking Victims Protection Act in response to growing concerns over modern day slavery. That same year the United Nations adopted the Palermo Protocol which is designed to prevent, suppress, and punish trafficking in persons, especially those involved in the exploitation of women and children. The TVPA defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” as:

“Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.”

“The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”

“A victim need not be physically transported from one location to another in order for the crime to fall within these definitions.”

Modern day slavery is a problem thriving today due to the global economic crisis, globalization, and international crime syndicates. There are differences on how to define it and handle prosecution; additionally there is an essential need to inform the world’s citizens, individual countries leaders and law enforcement at all levels. Education of all potential victims, law enforcement, and world leaders is the key to prevention of human trafficking in source countries, transit and destination countries. Human trafficking victims include those women, men, and children:

Forced to work on farms

In factories

As domestic servants

Child soldiers

For the purpose of organ harvesting

Foreign victims of trafficking are often afraid to come forward. They believe they are criminals or the captors use tactics such as:

Taking their passports.

Psychologically and physically abusing them.

Threatening to harm or kill their families.

Denying them medical attention.

Giving them little or inappropriate clothing or food.

Giving them little or no time off.

Making them work and live in the same place.

Isolating the victim and not disclosing the location of the victim.

Additionally it is estimated that 95% are forced into sexual exploitation. Sex workers include:

Prostitutes

Street walkers

Pornography

Phone sex

Brothels

Escort services

Massage Parlors

This happens on a state, national and international level.

One story in the Trafficking In Persons Report references a 12 year old runaway that plans on returning home the next day but instead is held against her will by a pimp. She is beaten when she tries to escape and threatened with her life. (TIP 2012) This particular incident happened in New York City but could have happened in any city or town in the United States.

Human trafficking is a lucrative business and will likely see a profit of about 32 billion US dollars this year. That is a 70% profit margin.

Legal companies like Exon and Google will have about a 28% profit margin. Slaves are cheap to maintain because they are abundant. This illegal industry has been growing rapidly since the 1980’s.

People are expendable because of the current economic crisis and easily replaced. In the 1800’s the average annual cost to maintain a slave was $40,000 (adjusted for inflation). Contrast that with 2012 when the average annual cost was $90/ £52.

In a letter Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Luis C deBaca wrote “The voices of survivors- whether calling from the past or ringing out in a courtroom in 2012- are a sad reminder that the struggle against modern-day slavery is a long fight still not won. They are a reminder that if governments shirk their responsibility to bring traffickers to justice and to help victims on their road to recovery, the intolerable yoke of modern-day slavery will persist.”

Prostitution is illegal in all parts of the United States except parts of Nevada!!

Therefore it is no wonder why victims often times feel more like criminals.

“Yeah he knocked my teeth out,” she said as she showed me her new smile that he paid for. “I have a prettier smile than ever, now.”

She’s been in this “life style”, as she calls it for 5 years. When it was presented the idea that she is being sexually exploited, she laughed. “Some prostitutes might be exploited but not me. I make money and am in control.”

I wonder about Stockholm’s Syndrome as she continues to say how wonderful her trafficker/pimp is and that she thinks prostitution should be made legal.

According to The Trafficking in Persons report 98% of prostitutes want to get out but can’t. Is the prostitute interviewed one of the 2%?

Only time will tell; one thing is sure she can’t continue forever.

“When selling sex is made illegal ‘the core act’ being sold in sex trafficking is illegal leaving no room for ‘smoke and mirrors”. All too often prostitutes are arrested over and over again before they are finally identified as victims of trafficking.

Police forces around the world see them as criminals because they are, at least in countries were prostitution is illegal. This is further compounded by the stereotype that prostitution is a victimless crime.

True abolition of slavery hasn’t happened yet and while human rights activists with blogs such as Slave Detective, Finding Justice, and Human Trafficking News Daily: Newsfeed on Global Human Trafficking have drawn attention to this offense there is little evidence that the general population understands just what is at stake (Dye, 2013) (Human trafficking news daily/ newsfeed of global human trafficking) (Llewellyn). The victims are coerced or kid-napped, the police often treat the victims as criminals and governments as well as citizens have the delusion contrary to evidence that trafficking is not happening here. Meanwhile slavery thrives another day.